Mike Sielski is a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer and the author of The Rise: Kobe Bryant and the Pursuit of Immortality and several other books. The Associated Press Sports Editors voted him the country’s top sports columnist in 2015, and his previous book, Fading Echoes: A True Story of Rivalry and Brotherhood from the Football Field to the Fields of Honour, was published in 2009. Sielski lives in Bucks County, PA, with his wife and two sons.